06-11-2014 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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May 23, 2014 Page 10 Formal franchise renewal instance where Comcast was in substantial noncompliance with a material provision of the franchise agreement. In what Comcast believes is a belated effort to create noncompliance issues on which the NSCC now (mistakenly) believes it can use as a basis for denying Comcast's formal renewal proposal, the NSCC issued a new notice of violation on May 1, 2014. Regardless of the merits of any belated alleged franchise violations, the allegations do not represent substantial noncompliance with a material term of the franchise and, thus, provide no basis for the NSCC's recommendation to deny Comcast's formal franchise renewal proposal. G. The NSCC's Recommendation On May 9, on the eve of the NSCC's vote to recommend that the cities preliminarily deny Comcast's renewal proposal, the NSCC staff issued "supplemental reports" recommending denial. The reports are similar to previous reports in their adversarial tone against Comcast. Aside from a lot of rhetoric, the supplemental reports mainly rehashed arguments in the initial Staff Report and RFRP, and do not refute Comcast's complaints about the legal and record deficiencies in the staff's demands, as explained in the sections below. The Supplemental Staff Report recommended denial because it said that Comcast's proposal did not meet community needs and .interests. But the Report also says that "compliance issues also serve as a basis for preliminary denial.."s'T'he Supplemental Staff Report is unclear whether it is asserting other bases for denial because it also incorporates by resolution the consultants' supplemental reports. The consultants indicate in various places that Comcast's proposal does "not comply" with the consultants' technical and system demands, "fail[s] to comply with many of the PEC; access and public service obligations contained in the RFRP," and docs not provide enough financial information to allow the consultant "to ascertain the level of profitability that Comcast generates in the franchise area." None of the unsupported assertions and rhetoric in the supplemental reports provides any basis for denying Comcast's formal renewal proposal. On May 15, after virtually no deliberation or discussion of the merits of Comcast's formal proposal by the commissioncrs—although there were complaints from commissioners that Comcast had not been willing to settle informally 011 the NSCC's terms and concerns m general about the informal Supp. Staff Report at 8-9.